Unlike in the spring, the Italians are increasingly allergic to the government’s corona measures. The pandemic has exacerbated grievances to which politicians have had no answers for years, says Giancarlo De Cataldo. The writer sees democracy in danger. Anyone looking at Italy’s map has seen a boot divided into three color zones since last Thursday. Yellow stands for a moderate, orange for a medium and red for a high risk of infection. Unlike in spring, the coronavirus is now widespread across the country and the situation is worsening day by day. On Friday, the authorities counted 28,872 newly infected people and 550 deaths. Given these numbers, virologists have been calling for a second nationwide lockdown for days. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte wants to avoid the complete closure. In an interview with the daily La Stampa, Conte recently said: “The economic consequences would be too severe and it would also mean that we have no strategy.” Hence the decision to proceed surgically. In addition to the curfew in Italy from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and the closure of cinemas, theaters and museums, the rest of everyday life is determined by the color assigned in each case.

In the red regions, which include Lombardy, Piedmont, the Aosta Valley and the autonomous province of Bolzano in the north and Calabria in the south, residents are only allowed to leave the house for professional or health reasons. For bars and restaurants, only take-away and deliveries are allowed, in retail only grocery stores, pharmacies and a few others are allowed to open. Face-to-face lessons are only available up to grade 6.

State and regions in permanent clinch

However, the new strategy has caused great resentment in most administrations in the red-colored regions. The president of Lombardy and Lega politician Attilio Fontana spoke of a “slap in the face for the whole region”, his party chairman Matteo Salvini even suspects a conspiracy against the provinces of Piedmont, Lombardy and Calabria ruled by the center-right camp. “Personally, I think the division is correct, depending on the risk of infection,” says the judge and writer Giancarlo De Cataldo, whose political thrillers “Suburra”, “The King of Rome” or “Romanzo Criminale” were also very successful in Germany. The attempt to save at least part of the economy is absolutely understandable. However, he would miss clear announcements that, however strict they may be, would be far more helpful than this alternately martial and paternalistic tone that is displayed by politics and the media.

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Italian media write that the opposition parties want to make political capital out of the pandemic and that the center-right presidents are constantly at odds with Rome. De Cataldo does not want to comment on this. It is more important to him to point out the causes of these disputes. After the war, the constitutional fathers opted for a central state, but granted regional and local administrations a certain degree of autonomy. Additional decision-making powers in the course of more recent reforms have meant that the competences between central government and regions overlap more and more. The dramatic images from Bergamo this spring are also a result of this. Meanwhile, the public prosecutor in Bergamo is investigating the question of whether the President of Lombardy Fontana should not have declared the province a quarantine area on his own – or should have.

Past mistakes take revenge

The same question of competence now arises in Campania. The president of the region, Vincenzo De Luca, has been arguing with the government in Rome for weeks. Despite the plight of the hospitals in his region, he does not want Campania to be classified as a red zone. In return, he ordered the closure of all schools almost a month ago, despite a ban from the Ministry of Education. “All of this shows that reform is urgently needed,” says De Cataldo. In contrast to the first wave of infections, the Italians seem reluctant to adapt to the new regulations. In the last few weeks there have been repeated demonstrations with violent riots. And not only in Naples or Palermo, but also in Milan and Turin, where shop windows of well-known fashion labels were smashed. Solidarity is waning.

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The Milanese are wondering why Campania or Naples are still in the yellow zone despite the high number of infections – and they suspect that something is wrong. In Calabria, the health system has been under provisional leadership for ten years because of former mafia infiltrations. However, this has not led to better administration, as the pandemic is now showing. The Neapolitan writer Roberto Saviano recently warned that Italian society is a volcano that could explode at any moment. “The volcano has been exploding for years,” countered De Cataldo. “And not just in Italy, but all over the western world.” The advancing populism is proof that these democracies are no longer able to remedy their weak points. Social injustice and a lack of future prospects are the breeding ground for anger and despair on which populism is built. Society is drifting more and more apart, stresses De Cataldo, and the pandemic has exacerbated the emergency.

“During the first lockdown, we writers posted videos asking our fellow citizens to stay home and read a good book,” he says. “At some point, however, I realized that, in the security of my four walls in the center of Rome, it was easy for me to talk. I felt like Marie-Antoinette.” The French queen, who was executed on the scaffold in the course of the revolution, is credited with the quote “If they have no bread, they should eat cake”. Past failures are taking revenge in Italy. In the last three decades the welfare state has been increasingly honed. Especially in healthcare. How would you have reacted to the pandemic if there were still enough hospitals, beds, sanitary facilities and the basic services of yore, asks De Cataldo. He demands: “We have to find antibodies against the damage done.” Because it is not only about the current fight against the corona virus, but also about the future of Western democracies.

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